OPERATOR'S MANUAL

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Table of contents

Glossary ...................................................................................................................... 3

System requirements .................................................................................................. 4

Overview ..................................................................................................................... 5

User interface ........................................................................................................ 5

Signal path............................................................................................................. 6

Operating the controls ........................................................................................... 6

LFOs .................................................................................................................... 10

Envelopes ............................................................................................................ 11

MIDI ..................................................................................................................... 12

Acknowledgements ................................................................................................... 14

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Glossary

DAW

Snap Heap is not a standalone program, it needs to be used in conjunction with a

host application where it is loaded as a plugin. These programs are usually called

"DAWs" (Digital Audio Workstations) or simply "hosts". There are many different

DAWs available on the market, and Snap Heap works with those that support

either the VST or the Audio Unit plugin architecture.

preset banks may be available to download using the Kilohearts installer.

Snapin

Similarly to how a DAW will load Snap Heap as a plugin, Snap Heap itself can

also load small audio effect modules called snapins. Snapins can be used either

directly in your DAW as a VST or Audio Unit, or used as building blocks in a Snap

Heap patch.

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System requirements

These are the minimum recommended system requirements for running Snap Heap.

CPU

2 GHz or faster

Memory

1 GB or more

guarantee that Snap Heap will work flawlessly in all use cases even if your system

does meet the minimum recommended system requirements.

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Overview

Snap Heap is a modular effect plugin with many uses. At the heart of the plugin is four

lanes of modular effect plugins known as snapins. Snapins come in many different

flavors, and implements many classic effects like distortion or chorus as well as more

unusual ones like formant filtering and frequency shifting.

In addition to being loaded into Snap Heap, snapins can also be loaded as plugins

directly in your DAW. Snap Heap is bundled with a few different snapins, and more

can be bought from the Kilohearts website.

User interface

This is an overview of the plugin UI. It may look a bit overwhelming at first, but let's

try to break it down a bit.

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1. In the top bar the name of the current patch is shown. By clicking the patch

name you will open up the preset browser from where you can save and load

can hold several snapins. Adding new snapins is as easy as clicking the

empty space at the bottom of a lane.

4. Under each lane, at the very bottom of the window, sits the lane mixing

controls. Here you can adjust the gain and pan of each lane independently,

among other things.

Signal path

The input audio is passed through all of the enabled effect lanes from left to right.

Each lane is processed in sequence, unless the "paralell routing" button is clicked.

When parallel routing is enabled, the two adjacent lanes will be linked

together and processed in parallel instead, and the result mixed together

Sometimes you might want more precise control when tuning a parameter. Hold the

shift key while moving a knob or slider to enter fine tuning mode, where the knob or

slider will move more slowly.

You can reset a knob to its default position by double clicking it.

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Working with patches

The first thing you want to do after installing Snap Heap is probably to try out some

of the presets it comes with. To reveal the preset browser, click on the name of the

current patch in the top most part of the UI.

Loading a preset in the preset browser is as easy as clicking on it. The preset browser

also allows saving presets, and organizing them into folders. Presets are divided into

two categories, factory presets and user preset.

Factory presets are included with Snap Heap or downloaded using the Kilohearts

installer. Factory presets are write protected to protect them from accidental

corruption.

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Building your sound

Once you have checked out some of the presets you are probably eager to get your

hands dirty and create your own patches. We designed Snap Heap to be easy and

fast to work with, and we hope you will enjoy experimenting and discovering the

possibilities. Still, knowledge is power, so in this section we will go through all the

features of Snap Heap in detail.

which holds the snapins in the lane, and the footer where

you will find some mixing controls.

In the lane header you will find the following controls:

Enable button

This toggle button will turn on or off the whole lane.

When the lane is turned off no sound will pass through it at all, and any snapins

sitting in it will have no effect. It is advisable that you turn off all lanes that you are

not using, to spare some CPU cycles.

Mute button

A toggle switch for muting a lane. Audio will still send audio to the lane, but all

Gain

Changes the volume of the output of the lane.

Pan

Pans the output of the lane left or right.

Mix

Adjust the output mix of the lane between completely unprocessed at 0% to fully

processed with snapins at 100%.

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Snapins

To add a new snapin to a lane, click the add snapin icon

which appears when you hover the empty space in a lane.

To remove a snapin simply click the little X icon in the top right corner of the snapin.

Modulation

Almost all parameters in Snap Heap and in snapins can be modulated. In Snap Heap

you will find four different modulation sources that can be used for modulation;

macro knobs, LFOs, envelopes and MIDI.

Hooking up a modulation source to a target parameter is done in pretty much the

same way for all modulation sources. Look for the little link icon appearing when

you are hovering your mouse pointer over a modulation source. Clicking the link

icon selects the modulation source and switches the UI over to modulation target

selection mode. In this mode a small orange modulation knob will appear next to

modulation knob can be dragged to adjust the level of modulation. To disconnect the

modulation, double click the modulation knob.

Macro knobs

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